626 



MINNESOTA. 



sovereignty after the title had been passed to 

 them by the General Government, have as- 

 sumed a wide latitude in the disposition of 

 these lands. But any disposition of such lands 

 not in accordance with the letter and spirit of 

 the acts donating them must be null and void. 

 It has been held that they were available for 

 purposes of general internal improvements, 

 and it has been the practice of the States hav- 

 ing such lands to so appropriate them. Min- 

 nesota, however, is perhaps the only State that 

 has sought to appropriate these lands to objects 

 other than those of internal improvement. 

 The report of the State Auditor shows the sev- 

 eral grants of swamp-lands made by the State 

 Legislature as follows : 



After the above grants are satisfied, all the 

 residue under the law was to go to the Soldiers' 

 Orphans' Asylum. But this institution is in 

 fact defunct, all the soldiers' orphans having 

 been cared for that desired to avail themselves 

 of its benefits. The Surveyor - General says : 

 "I estimate that from 11,000,000 acres yet to 

 survey, we will receive not far from 3,300,000 

 more acres of swamp-land, because the per- 

 centage of swamp-lands increases as we advance 

 into the unsurveyed areas. Out of these lands 

 already conveyed to the State there have been 

 actually conveyed to various railroad compa- 

 nies by the State 1,037,180 acres. Most of 

 these lands, in the older portions of the State, 

 have already been sold by these companies to 

 actual settlers, and title passed." In his opin- 

 ion the grants above mentioned do not pretend 

 to be in sympathy with,' or in any manner 

 kindred to, the objects of the grant. How- 

 ever meritorious the purposes of such legisla- 

 tion, these acts simply express a betrayal of a 

 trust, a breach of trusteeship. They should be 

 promptly repealed, and the statutes cleared of 

 such worthless rubbish. On the other hand, it 

 is urged in the State that the grants of swamp- 

 lands made by the State are secure from any 

 attempt to shake the title of the grantees by 

 legal proceedings, notwithstanding the grants 

 were made in violation of the trust imposed on 

 the State by an act of Congress, and that the 

 only danger lies in a possible declaration of 



forfeiture by Congress. To support this opin- 

 ion, reference is made to a decision of the Uni- 

 ted States Supreme Court rendered in 1868 in 

 the case of Baker vs. McGee. A grant of lands 

 had been made by Congress to Missouri to aid 

 in building railroads from Hannibal to St. Jo- 

 seph, and it required that the lands thus given 

 should be disposed of by the State for the pur- 

 poses contemplated and " no other." The State 

 granted the lands to a railroad company, but 

 gave a preemption right to settlers in actual 

 occupancy and who had improved the land 

 prior to the date of the Congressional act. 

 Suit was brought against a preemptor who 

 claimed land under this provision by a man 

 who had purchased the same land from the 

 railroad company. The latter claimed, among 

 other things, that the State had no right to di- 

 vert the lands to any purpose not contemplated 

 by the act of Congress granting them to the 

 State, and was expressly prohibited from doing 

 so. Upon this the Court said: "It is con- 

 tended that the Legislature of Missouri had no 

 power to grant the privilege of preemption. 

 If this was a contest between the United States 

 and the State of Missouri, the question of pow- 

 er would b a proper subject of examination. 

 But the United States are not complaining, and 

 no other party has the right to complain." 



A still later decision of the same Court, filed 

 in October, 1878, is decisive of the illegality of 

 these grants. The case arose in Iowa under an 

 act of the Legislature of March 22, 1858, which 

 authorized counties to devote the swamp-lands 

 to the erection of bridges, roadways, railroads, 

 or other public improvements, provided no such 

 transfer should be made unless the person and 

 company expressly released the State and coun- 

 ty from all liability for reclaiming said lands as 

 provided by the act of Congress. Under this 

 statute Adams County sold its swamp-lands to 

 the American Emigrant Company, the com- 

 pany agreeing to erect such public buildings as 

 the county might request. The county brought 

 suit in equity to rescind the contract on the 

 ground of fraud by the company. The case 

 went to the Supreme Court of the United States. 

 The opinion there filed held that the act of the 

 Legislature authorizingcountiesowning swamp- 

 lands to devote the same to the erection of pub- 

 lic buildings and making railroads through the 

 county is contrary to the act of Congress grant- 

 ing such lands to the State, and therefore un- 

 authorized and void ; that the provision of the 

 act of Congress that the proceeds of such lands 

 shall be applied exclusively to the purpose of 

 reclaiming said lands by drains and levees was 

 an express trust imposed upon the State to ap- 

 ply the proceeds to the particular purpose for 

 which they were granted; that trust was sa- 

 credly binding upon the State, to be carried 

 out and not to be abandoned or repudiated. 

 The transfer by the State of these lands to 

 counties, subject to the act of Congress, and re- 

 serving legislative control over them, involved 

 no breach of trust, counties being subordinate 



